AP

NBC News has pulled Ayman Mohyeldin from Gaza after the veteran journalist personally witnessed the death of four Palestinian boys, according to a Thursday report by The Intercept.

According to the report, by Glenn Greenwald, NBC executives said the decision was due to "security concerns" as Israel prepares its ground invasion. The attack that left the children dead occurred near the hotel where Mohyeldin and other journalists were staying. However, Greenwald insinuated the move could have been because the reporter's "powerful" coverage of the conflict had angered the pro-Israeli political establishment.

"Over the last two weeks, Mohyeldin’s reporting has been far more balanced and even-handed than the standard pro-Israel coverage that dominates establishment American press coverage; his reports have provided context to the conflict that is missing from most American reports and he avoids adopting Israeli government talking points as truth. As a result, neocon and 'pro-Israel' websites have repeatedly attacked him as a 'Hamas spokesman' and spouting 'pro-Hamas rants,'" Greenwald wrote.

The day before his reported removal from Gaza, Mohyeldin reported on the deaths of the four young Palestinian boys. He said he played with them and kicked around a ball shortly before their death.

"The attack - and its heartrending aftermath – was witnessed by NBC News. Moments earlier, the boys were playing soccer with journalists on the beach. The four victims were named as Ahed Atef Bakr and Zakaria Ahed Bakr, both 10 years old, Mohamed Ramez Bakr, 11, and Ismael Mohamed Bakr, 9," Mohyeldin's report said.

NBC and Mohyeldin did not return requests for comment from Business Insider.

Additional reporting by Hunter Walker.

Sergiev Posad Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Friday for a ceasefire by pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces fighting in eastern Ukraine to allow for negotiations.

Putin said he was in contact with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after a Boeing 777 passenger airliner came down in an area under rebel control, killing all 298 people on board, many of them Dutch citizens.

"Direct talks between the opposing sides must be established as soon as possible. All sides in the conflict must swiftly halt fighting and begin peace negotiations," Putin said at a meeting with Russian Orthodox Church leaders at a monastery Sergiev Posad, near Moscow.

"It is with great concern and sadness that we are watching what is happening in eastern Ukraine. It's awful, it's a tragedy."

CLICK IMAGE for slideshow: A piece of a plane with the sign "Malaysia Airlines" lies in the grass as a group of …

Putin, who has blamed the airliner tragedy on Poroshenko for refusing to extend a shaky ceasefire with rebels in the region, said he hoped the Ukrainian president would be able to offer a peaceful way out of the conflict.

Kiev accuses pro-Russian separatists of shooting down the airliner with help from Russian intelligence representatives.

(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; editing by Ralph Boulton)

BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic extremists killed at least 115 Syrian troops, guards and workers as they captured a gas field in central Syria following daylong clashes, activists said Friday.

More than 20 militants also died in the fighting on Thursday for the Shaer gas field, the deadliest battles so far between fighters of the Islamic State group and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Fighters from the Islamic State have in the past few weeks seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border where they declared a self-styled caliphate. Earlier, they already captured much of Syria's oil-rich eastern province of Deir el-Zour.

The massive assault on the Shaer field, which lies in the desert region of Palmyra in the central province of Homs, began with a suicide bombing and an attack on army checkpoints on Thursday, according to an activist there who goes by the name Beibares Tellawi.

The militants seized the field after fierce clashes with government forces that went on for 12 hours, Tellawi said.

"This is the biggest operation (by Islamic State fighters) against the regime in Homs province," Tellawi said, speaking via Skype from Homs.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 115 people on the government side were killed.

The Observatory said 21 Islamic State fighters were killed during the battle, while Tellawi put the figure at 27.

An official in the Homs governor's office contacted by The Associated Press said he had no information on the incident. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to talk to media. The Syrian government rarely comments on deadly attacks targeting its forces.

The Observatory and Tellawi both said that the fate of more than 200 people captured in the facility is still unknown.

An amateur video said to be from the area and released by activists shows dozens of bodies strewn across a desert area. It also shows jihadis with at least two multiple rocket launchers and two tanks, which they claim were sized in the fighting.

The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events.

A website commonly used by militants showed similar photos, including ones depicting green ammunition boxes allegedly captured by the "lions of the Islamic State" in the fighting around the gas field, as well as artillery and a multiple rocket launcher.

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Associated Press writer Sam Kimball contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States began building a case Friday that would pin the blame for the downing of the passenger jet over Ukraine on separatist forces supported by Russia, in a disaster that could dramatically escalate the crisis in Ukraine. President Barack Obama said one American was among the nearly 300 killed and called for an immediate cease-fire to allow for an unfettered investigation.

Evidence indicates that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists, Obama said at the White House. He warned that the incident showed the crisis in Ukraine won't be localized or contained to the region.

"This should snap everybody's heads to attention," Obama said.

He identified the U.S. citizen who was killed as Quinn Lucas Schansman. No other details were available on the passenger.

While cautioning that the exact circumstances of the crash were still being determined, Obama pointed his finger at Russia for providing support to separatists that he suggested enabled them to shoot down the plane. He said such an attack wouldn't be possible without sophisticated equipment and training — "and that is coming from Russia."

"Obviously, we're beginning to draw some conclusions given the nature of the shot that was fired," Obama said in a stern address at the White House. "There are only certain types of anti-aircraft missiles that can reach up 30,000 feet and shoot down a passenger jet."

View gallery

Quinn Lucas Schansman with dual citizenship U.S. and Dutch was the only named U.S. citizen who peris …

Officials from the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board were on their way to Ukraine to help determine what happened, Obama said. He warned that evidence must not be tampered with as a United Nations-backed investigation goes forward, and he said, "We will hold all its members, including Russia, to their word" in allowing access to the crash.

At the United Nations earlier Friday, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power delivered an extraordinary speech rebuking Russia and noting that the U.S. could not rule out that Russian personnel had assisted separatists in firing a missile at the plane.

"Russia can end this war," Power said. "Russia must end this war."

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a single investigator to Ukraine as part of a U.S. delegation to assist with the investigation.

The White House has taken the lead in forming the U.S. delegation, according to an official familiar with the effort. A command center has been set up at the State Department, where officials from agencies participating in the delegation gathered Friday morning for a briefing from the CIA on the political and military situation in Ukraine, the official said.

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Widi Yuwono, the brother of Yuli Hastini, right, shows her sister's family portrait with her Dut …

A second U.S. official said all available evidence, including satellite imagery, pointed to the plane being shot down by an SA-11 anti-aircraft missile fired from eastern Ukraine by Ukrainian separatist forces. The U.S. detected three discrete events associated with the shootdown, the official said: the launching of the missile from the Ukraine side of the border, the missile's impact with the plane, and the plane slamming into the ground.

Both officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss U.S. intelligence matters publicly by name.

The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations, including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists. At least 189 of the dead were from the Netherlands.

The plane was shot down in eastern, Ukraine, near the border with Russia, in an area where Moscow's support for pro-Russian separatists has alarmed the U.S. and its European allies. The incident occurred one day after Obama announced broader economic sanctions against Russia for its threatening moves in Ukraine.

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Associated Press writers Joan Lowy and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

Beirut (AFP) - Jihadists in the northern Syrian province of Raqa have accused a woman of adultery and stoned her to death, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.

It was the first "execution" of its kind by the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, which has proclaimed the establishment of an Islamic "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq.

"The Islamic State carried out its first sentence of death by stoning against a woman in Tabaqa, accusing her of adultery," said the Britain-based Observatory, referring to a town in Raqa province, most of which is under IS control.

An activist in the province confirmed the report, and said the stoning took place in a public square in the Tabaqa market area on Thursday evening.

"This is the first time that this has happened here," added Abu Ibrahim.

A second activist in Raqa, Hadi Salameh, said the woman was reportedly in her thirties, but that few details were known about her except that she was killed after sentencing by an IS religious court.

"The situation is unbearable. Stoning is the worst punishment history has known. A quick death is more merciful," Salameh told AFP via the Internet, using a pseudonym for security reasons.

"The woman's family did not know the sentence was going to be carried out at this time," said Salameh.

He said residents are "terrified" of IS, but fear the consequences of reacting to its harsh methods.

IS first emerged in the Syrian conflict in late spring last year.

Some Syrian rebels initially welcomed the jihadists, seeing them as potential allies in their war to topple President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

But the group's systematic abuses and quest for domination swiftly turned the mainstream opposition against it, and rebels have been battling IS fighters since January.

IS spearheaded a recent offensive in Iraq, capturing large swathes of territory and massive amounts of weapons from fleeing Iraqi troops.

Jihadists stone Syria woman to death for 'adultery'

A human rights group says this was the first "execution" of its kind by the Islamic State group in Syria.
'Situation is unbearable'